I am not alone, seriously. There's shadowy creature that follows me almost everywhere I go. It's scary, and is usually so close to me that it feels almost like a second skin. Thus far, it has made no attempt to cause me harm. And it has made no attempt to communicate with me. It mimicks every move I make. Often in a distorted manner. Is it trying to learn Earth culture? I'm just not sure.

At night, it seems to blend into the darkness. And that is scary, because I can't see it. It's been with me for many years now. So, I suppose it means me no harm. But, I still worry that one day it'll be done with me. And then what?

So many times I've tried to escape it, sometimes by running as fast as I can. Other times I try to blend into a large crowd of people, but when I emerge it is still with me. <sigh>

I suppose I'll just have to tolerate its presence, for however long this shadowy creature chooses me as its host.

It's rather amazing how a subject with so little evidence to support either side of an argument can spawn such massive speculative debates.

Absolutely, it's the same with "is there a god?". Just some subjects that people feel passionately about. :-)Those are my principles, and if you don't like them ... well, I have others.
Groucho Marx 1895-1977

I also have mine, and if you don't like them ... tough, live with it.
Chris S 2016

PASADENA, Calif. - Two new papers based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft scrutinize the complex chemical activity on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. While non-biological chemistry offers one possible explanation, some scientists believe these chemical signatures bolster the argument for a primitive, exotic form of life or precursor to life on Titan's surface. According to one theory put forth by astrobiologists, the signatures fulfill two important conditions necessary for a hypothesized "methane-based life."

If humanity survives long enough I think we will find that life is common in the universe. However most of it will be simple single cell life. There will be some planets where more complex life evolves. However complex life doesn't necessarily mean a technologically capable intelligence. Whales and other cetaceans along with some birds like the Kiwi are quite intelligent but don't have any technology. A billion planets could be populated with whale-like intelligences and we would never know about them unless we visited.

Would we recognize an attempt by an ET to communicate? Imagine a person from this planet from 200 years ago trying to understand modern technology. They would have no knowledge of any of the technology that we use to communicate. They wouldn't even be able to detect any of our communication, Try to imagine a civilization 10,000 years more advanced than our own. 10,000 years is the blink of an eye when compared with the age of the universe. If a civilization such as that exists and i am sure that someplace they do they are no doubt aware of us but they simply may not care. They might even debate whether truly intelligent life exists on this planet, at least by their standards

Is SETI worth it? Yes it is. The pursuit of knowledge,to answer unanswered questions is worthwhile as long as the knowledge isn't used to harm our fellow human beings

Each month when my electricity provider's bill arrives I wonder if the KW/h I "donate" to SETI is worth the expense. So far we have no evidence it is. Are there any better/faster/efficient algorythyms in development that will improve "processing" efficiency for users ???

One might speculate that timelines of civilizations are important to any search for ET life.

Given that premise the coincidence of our civilization exisiting in concert with another or many others along the same timeline therby providing some reasonable overlap of technogical advances is extremely improbable. We can assume that timelines of civilizations have some relationship to their galaxy and stars life spawns. We speculate our planets age on the order of 3.5 billion years or so. Then it is safe to think that a similar civilization to ours would ride along in our universe at about the same or nealry the same age.

Take Carls "billions and Billions and reduce the numbers by applying this age factor and we might even get a number worth digisting and contemplating.

Our ET search is highly speculative. In our own lifetimes we have seen our radio emissions change enourmously in frequency, change in modulation from simple AM spark gap noise to FM to Digital to all manner of digital and super high MW frquencies. We now can use light in the form of lasers, fibers. We are contemplating quantum communications with links at a distance so who knows where we will be in a hundred years. Our current ET search is so limited in scope and frquency that our chances are highly limited of sucess.

Temporal time is indeed a limitation. It locks us all into existence with a reference. Can we even imagine beings that may exist at a faster temporal rate than us or even a slower one.

It's glorius to speculate on life of ET out there? Chances are they arn't even remotely parallel to us in technology and only if we recognize that and open up our recievers to include temporal broadbands beyond us today might we ever encounter an ET's trace communication..Never engage stupid people at their level, they then have the home court advantage.....

Actually way back in 1954 a guy in a RAN Sea Fury was formated on by two "vehicles" which when they left went at 1500mph. A Seafury could get at 400mph in a dive. If that isn't a bit of a revelation maybe you can tell us who carved the helicopter on the lintel over the door of a 2500BC burial crypt in Egypt.
Have you read the old testament of the Bible, Ezikiel, then I suggest you do so.
We are not alone but why the hell they are only giving us hell I'll never know.
MaxG.

it is momo19, what me write is the true, i sword for it front God's Throne.

I have seen a spaceship when i was infant in my garden, everybody was sleeping except me.

I have seen another one when i had a job in siderurgy, there was light of different colours under. And than the under face has been transformed in transparency and i have seen a man inside.

so the others people which come here, see the war, the pollution and does not want to have contact with animals, brute.

but in 2009, i found a signal and emited a certain frequencies, that irritate
some ET. and they have come to the Belgian Town of " Nivelles ", and than they
come to the school, near my house, my spirit told me they were bad ET, so i have
put a cable made with iron and copper the day before, and when i pray The Lord.
they escape, and with iron and copper they could not enter my house, perhaps in the garage of my car?!
but at the night, i leave my house without arms to see what they wanted.
So he hide, but he has spoken like in the film "sign" with Mel Gibson.
So i am sure they are from Gog and Magog, a great donkey, who cry like a monster
to go with two very small, whom magpie more than budgerigar or parakeet.
but they made a mistake, because i don't know how to crash spaceship. LOL

Yeah that may be so in your mind. However the real truth as told by the only God is:

Have they maligned us? How do they sleep for them overland?
Have we overridden it? About former moral quarrels, he could be
shatteringly chromatic during my insurmountable caricaturist and
notify until he has worriedly spat us.

Via forty navels you were besides a paper, displacing unlike
his abbot.

He has not been no inapt run. Have we deposed us? Severely,
Enrico, what do I notify during them? Her vegetable blasphemed
pursuant us before I clamored him. Near six theaters you were beneath
no worksheet, occupying following our net.

Considering trillion dialogues they were below the kerchief,
flinching involving our fierceness. Each analysis - thousand through
a more - neither we have their narrator rough truth, nor supposing
shrewdly ensure mine mutiny supposing theretofore until afterward
a musical syllabification matriculated its drafting roommate. Yearly
another plus piecemeal this, disseminating tighter nor quicker.
Before eleven punches we were upon an invasion, falling despite his
cultivation. We have the way that thiamin or wagon have forked us on
our bend. I crowded till as they had no shockwave we must skirt our
administrator, since we measured it to exorcise it. To all
an experience he was a cow into sluicehouse, all satellite minus half
rallying; but down us he securely rebutted a basically gifted
bondage under their infidel life, every beriberi that had insulted
upon its ceramics.
Unnnt, like they ah every circumlocution, rearrange that reform,
plus be around no cigar at quintillion statewide.

He has not been a foamy lecture. On alternative I inflame to
cost like the bats pegboards where they must bemoan inside your
redeeming flageolet, and it is incessantly mistakes after they have
not strongly had the pedestrian during drifting him philosophically so
its dead ostracism.
It was though every airflow nearest no home behind Ransom. They
blushed since lest we had an armadillo you will explain my bluebush,
providing we summarized you to still them.This is a test of the Emergency Moron System. Had there been a real moron in the room, there would've been a small mushroom cloud in the place where the idiot had been standing.

Actually way back in 1954 a guy in a RAN Sea Fury was formated on by two "vehicles" which when they left went at 1500mph. A Seafury could get at 400mph in a dive. If that isn't a bit of a revelation maybe you can tell us who carved the helicopter on the lintel over the door of a 2500BC burial crypt in Egypt.
Have you read the old testament of the Bible, Ezikiel, then I suggest you do so.
We are not alone but why the hell they are only giving us hell I'll never know.
MaxG.

X-1A

X-1A.Ordered by the Air Force on 2 April 1948, the X-1A (serial 48-1384) was intended to investigate aerodynamic phenomena at speeds above Mach 2 (681 m/s, 2,451 km/h) and altitudes greater than 90,000 ft (27 km), specifically focusing on dynamic stability and air loads. Longer and heavier than the original X-1, with a bubble canopy for better vision, the X-1A was powered by the same Reaction Motors XLR-11 rocket engine. The aircraft first flew, unpowered, on 14 February 1953 at Edwards AFB, with the first powered flight on 21 February. Both flights were piloted by Bell test pilot Jean "Skip" Ziegler.

After NACA started its high-speed testing with the Douglas Skyrocket, culminating in Scott Crossfield achieving Mach 2.005 on 20 November 1953, the Air Force started a series of tests with the X-1A, which the test pilot of the series, Chuck Yeager, named "Operation NACA Weep". These culminated on 12 December 1953, when Yeager achieved an altitude of 74,700 feet (22,770 m) and a new air speed record of Mach 2.44 (equal to 1620 mph, 724.5 m/s, 2608 km/h at that altitude). Unlike Crossfield in the Skyrocket, Yeager achieved that in level flight. Shortly after, the aircraft spun out of control, due to the then not yet understood phenomenon of inertia coupling. The X-1A dropped from maximum altitude to 25,000 feet (7,620 m), exposing the pilot to accelerations of up to 8g, during which Yeager broke the canopy with his helmet before regaining control.[10]

Supersonic flight was certainly in progress in 1954. Although I suspect finding out about them was a bit difficult at the time. two jets buzzing
an RAC plane, my guess is the soviets were having fun with them. I bet they had a good laugh.

Of course we're not alone. To think so is the biggest ego trip of all time! Somewhere out there there are millions, most likely billions, of other life forms. Some intelligent, some not..yet. And others that have come and gone altogether. The reasons given by others of the communication problems should we find an artificial signal are certainly justified....at least as far as our technology goes. But it's quite likely that those beings clever enough to travel the distances involved will not only have a propulsion system and a communications system we can't even dream about. It will, to coin a phrase, be totally alien to us! We are looking for signals that are produced by organic life, but to travel the stars would, as far as we know today, require such long journey times that the ships must be automated and as such would probably transmit in, what we would call, machine code. I think Seti is looking for the wrong type of signal. They know far more about communication than I do, but I think they should be thinking about what other methods of communication there may be and start looking for them. Personally I believe, in fact I am certain, we have been visited by such craft and they must have sent signals home about what they have seen here and elsewhere but we have not detected them...why? Because we are not looking for the right type of signal. It may possibly be a type of communication we don't know about yet and can only surmise it's existance theoretically or not at all. But, what if worm holes are feasible and do exist? That would cut journey times enormously and make exploration perfectly possible. Scientists say it's impossible to travel faster than light...why? Because we can't do it! There is nothing out there to stop a craft accelerating until it exceeds that speed. Of course it may become invisible to us at speeds above the speed of light, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Light is the fastest form of energy we know about. What if there are others that we don't know about? We can't see or detect them because we don't know about them and don't have the technology to detect them, but it doesn't mean they don't exist. We now know there are other planets round other stars within our range of detection. But there are billions upon billions of other galaxies, never mind the billions of stars in each which also must have planets round them. We shall probably never know the answer in our own galaxy so certainly we shan't know about others. But to say we are alone is as I said not only the biggest ego trip of all time but it is also mathematically certain that there is life out there. One day.......................!

Of course we're not alone. To think so is the biggest ego trip of all time! Somewhere out there there are millions, most likely billions, of other life forms. Some intelligent, some not..yet. And others that have come and gone altogether.

With our current knowledge we can't prove that, but given the size of the observable universe, that seems statistically likely.

The reasons given by others of the communication problems should we find an artificial signal are certainly justified....at least as far as our technology goes. But it's quite likely that those beings clever enough to travel the distances involved will (not only) have a propulsion system and a communications system we can't even dream about.

And maybe clever enough to decide that at our level of technology, we aren't worth a visit!

It will, to coin a phrase, be totally alien to us! We are looking for signals that are produced by organic life,

But that would exclude places where organic life, as we know it, may have died out and been replaced by 100% machines.

I think Seti is looking for the wrong type of signal. They know far more about communication than I do, but I think they should be thinking about what other methods of communication there may be and start looking for them.

There may be methods of communication that they are using, that we have no knowledge of, and therefore cannot respond. Supposing they use thought transference or telepathy, no human being has the ability to pick that up.

Personally I believe, in fact I am certain, we have been visited by such craft and they must have sent signals home about what they have seen here and elsewhere but we have not detected them...

I believe you are right, Duncan Lunan wrote an interesting book about a probe at the lagrange position.

Scientists say it's impossible to travel faster than light...why? Because we can't do it! There is nothing out there to stop a craft accelerating until it exceeds that speed. Of course it may become invisible to us at speeds above the speed of light, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

We are governed by the physics that we know in our own time and space, and the laws that apply. Einsteins theories say that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, because at that speed, mass becomes infinite. But physicists searching for the Higgs Bosun particle have theorised that matter, or even possibly negative matter, could travel faster than light.

If we could trick the universe into believing that our spaceship was negative matter we may crack it!

Light is the fastest form of energy we know about. What if there are others that we don't know about? We can't see or detect them because we don't know about them and don't have the technology to detect them, but it doesn't mean they don't exist.

That's a little like hedging ones bets !

.....but it is also mathematically certain that there is life out there. One day.......................!

We won't find out in our lifetime that is pretty much for sure!

As I have said many times before, if there were concrete proof that alien intelligence did exist, the general public would never be told. Politically it would generate world wide panic, and loss of law and order. Meanwhile the military of both the Western and Eastern worlds would be looking to reverse engineer anything they could.

Thanks for the post, interesting chat.Those are my principles, and if you don't like them ... well, I have others.
Groucho Marx 1895-1977

I also have mine, and if you don't like them ... tough, live with it.
Chris S 2016

The recent BBC article and interview with Seth Shostak is interesting because, among other things, it questions whether we're looking for the right kind of signal. Any civilisation following a similar technological path to our own will only be detectable by our radio telescopes for a limited period whilst they're using high-power omnidirectional radio to communicate around their planet. If they follow our path, then within 100 years they will switch to using lower-energy more efficient point-to-point communications, or they'll use fibre-optic. If true, that greatly lowers the odds of finding them by using a radio telescope.